All
this activity can only be achieved with the willing support of our
members and our volunteer committee in scheduling and arranging for
member volunteers to:• act as race referees• provide a cohort of trained traffic controllers to ensure safe turn points• get out there early to set up signage according to strict protocols• act as sign-on and finish line marshals• pack-up and drive out the van complete with operational emergency equipment and communication devices• set up and take down refreshments, etca total of at least 350 volunteer participations but before this can take place, the Committee has had to:• pre-arrange for local authority / police approval which involves- booking a venue/location, submitting temporary traffic management plans,- letter-boxing local residents in some race locations, as well as• arranging for attendance by a qualified first-aider.

Mostly
we get this right, but very occasionally, due to a variety of reasons
we don’t – as the last two Sundays will attest and on one occasion in
the winter series last year when we had to cancel these scheduled races.
On these occasions we appreciate your understanding that we are but
human or that some of these things are indeed out of our control.

All
members should know that we simply can not race if we have not been
officially sanctioned, or we cannot achieve compliance with official
requirements, or if our safety systems are lacking.

Hopefully,
you, our members consider this a pretty good result and extraordinary
value for a race fee of $5 per entry and a yearly $10 to the ACT Vets
Club from your $100 yearly membership fee – the remainder covering
insurance ($70) and funding our parent AVCC organization ($20).

This
level activity simply cannot be achieved if the required 350 odd
volunteer participations per year do not willingly turn out to support
the almost 8,000 rider participations.

If
you would like us to improve, you are invited to contact me or any of
the new committee members to discuss your ideas, to provide us with
extra support, or better still, to join the committee – but certainly we
rely on you our 400 odd members to volunteer to help run the more than
70 events we stage in a year.

Put
bluntly, if you do not volunteer to help run at least one event per
year, you are ‘bludging’ (to put it in the Australian vernacular) on the
other members who do.

Behind the scenes activities

The
President, Secretary and committee members have continued to be
involved in communications with the Australian Veterans Cycling Council
(AVCC) Executive on insurance issues. Progress has been slow. After the
AVCC Exec and its broker shifted our underwriter from QBE to Lloyds at
the start of the 2015 calendar - to ensure adequate coverage for 3rd
party liability claims, we have sought specific assurances that members
will be covered ‘24/7 involving accidents while riding a bike’ (eg while
on training and commuting rides). My personal experience in 2015
indicates that we are indeed covered on training rides, but we will
continue to closely examine insurance issues.

Should
you have a cycling accident whether in a race or out training, please
bring it to your race referee’s attention or to my or the secretary’s
attention and we will assist you in making a claim.

Focus on Safety

To
ensure races and even training are run in the safest conditions, the
club has maintained a high level of compliance with police and local
authority requirements. We have had a qualified first aider attend
almost all official events and have maintained high standard of
emergency communications to emergency services. A portable defibrillator
device has been available at all recent races (and used once!).

We
still need to do better in encouraging training or re-training in first
aid, both as a back-up for professional first-aiders at scheduled races
and to provide assistance for accidents sustained on training rides. We
still lack accurate information on the first aid capabilities and
qualifications on our member data-base.

I
encourage the club members from officials to competitors to continue
this focus on safety. Improvements to safety, above requirements, which
could be considered are: - considering the use of trail and lead cars in
the ACT, especially on the more busy roads; considering new (safer)
courses or alterations to existing courses to remove any higher risk
segments; ongoing improvements to emergency communications and first aid
capability, and to promote good rider behavior in all races.

Relationships with other cycling clubs and ACT Government

Last
year, we joined ‘Capital Cycling’ an umbrella organization in the ACT
covering local bike racing clubs and Pedal Power – to better co-ordinate
our activities, to achieve a more united voice with all things cycling,
but in a way which will maintain our independence and affiliation.

Its early days, but this looks like it will work to our advantage.

Your
Club consults with the ACT Government through attendance at the ACT
Bicycle Advisory Group meetings along with Canberra Cycling/Vikings and
Pedal Power. This has worked to our advantage – as an example - in
having our ATCs trained for free, but at times it has its limitations.
The ACT Government failed to directly consult with us in considering
changes to the SFP Master Plan – though we have now made our views clear
to the ACT Agency managing this.

The AVCC

We
are in early discussions with the Australian Veterans Cycling Council
(AVCC) about running the National Championships in our patch this year.
The national champs involve a TT, a criterium and a road race – all in
age-based bunches against any AVCC (ie interstate) club competitors. It
is likely that this can be dove-tailed onto one of our scheduled road
races this year, with the addition of the TT and Crit – plus a bunch of
AVCC officials in attendance. Phill can let us know more about this and I
would hope we support this event – in at least the numbers which we
achieved in our own club championships.

For
the present and foreseeable future we will maintain our affiliation
with the AVCC – accepting its insurance, its race rules and protocols as
this gives us the best balance of cost effectiveness and independence
in managing our own affairs – certainly much better than being
affiliated with Cycling Australia (CA).

We
appreciate that this impacts on those members who also wish to race in
CA affiliated club events – in having to pay two insurance premiums as
part of separate memberships, but I feel that the club members were very
clear in affirming a clear preference for AVCC affiliation in recent
past – so we wish to leave this undisturbed.

My thanks to the Committee and members

I
can not conclude my remarks without expressing my appreciation and
admiration for your hard working volunteer committee members and certain
ordinary members, in particular:• Phill Coulton, our secretary for
the huge work he does in getting ACT / NSW local authority / police
approval for our road race program and SFP bookings – as well as pretty
much the lions share of running the club, itself• Graeme O’Neill for the single handed running of our track racing program•
Barb Bayliss, our treasurer for the last ten years, for keeping us not
only solvent, but still ‘in-the-money’ despite some big demands on
spending• Ian ‘The Bleat’ Morton for his unfailing attention in
publishing the much-read Monday’s Bleat and any needed ‘special’
editions• Graham Hendrie and until recently Henry Beverstock for
unfailing duties with the van and set up and alsoGraham’s web-site
maintenance• Rob Langridge, Ben Davis, Ian Albery and Paul Robey –
your race committee - for co-ordinating the race, first aid and
volunteer marshal program and especially Rob’s close attention to the
dark art of handicapping• For advice on insurance and legal issues,
marketing of club clothing, trophies and medals and a fountain of
sensible ideas and wise counsel provided by your general committee
members, Ian Albury again, Kim Malclom, Linda Stals and Kev Hennessy.•
And this year I would also like to recognize the work that member Allan
Bontjer has done on updating our data base and race system - the ‘RMS’
as well as member Bill Frost’s very capable running of the Peter
McLennan memorial race at Gunning

Finally
as I have graciously retired from racing since my training accident,
just one year ago, I thought it best that one’s club president be
actively involved in club racing – but others do not think that an
essential criteria – so I would be happy to continue, but I would dearly
like someone to step-up for next year, either from the general
membership or from the committee.

Something to think about!

I
would also wish that the current Committee members continue for another
year, but there will be some retirements, notably Barb Bayliss as
treasurer (she is getting a ‘good behavior’ early release after serving
10 years) and Rob Langridge as race committee member and handicapper. We
wish their replacements will live up to the high standards set.

• Newcrest Orange Challenge- 20 MarchAn epic 170km ride through stunning NSW scenery finished of with some of the finest food and wines from the Orange region.Details Here

• 2016 South Pacific Veterans Cycling Championships- 25-28 MarchA
combination of aged based events (the Time Trial and 300 metre
sprints), and graded road race and Criterium events. In the age group
races, riders are grouped in 5 year increments. Women start at 30 years
and men at 35 years of age. ClickHEREfor details and online entry.

RACE REPORTS:

Stromlo Criterium – 16th February

Always
seems like the wind pops up about 4ish just in time for the Vets Crits,
the junior grades away first with G,F and E for 22 and 2 laps, all
grades seeking the safety of the pack with the wind, particularly at the
bottom part of the course where it was particularly difficult, everyone
to their credit was able to hold their lines and pass safely. Bernie
Crowley led the G’s home followed by Paul Robey and Leon Hornell. For F
Troop and the E’s it was ladies night with Amanda Boers leading F Troop
in with Ian Barrass and Mike Spoljaric taking the other podium spots
while in the E’s Alison Hale finished too strongly with Mike Hayes and
Morto (our beloved Bleat editor) in close pursuit.

Next
away were the A train and C Grade, early parts of the race saw Robin
Mules, Steve Stolk and Ian “the Mountain Man” Preston taking turns in
roughing up the C grade pack by going off the front and on several
occasions the bunch was broken up but managed to get back for the most
part, Robin Mules though managed a breakaway in the last 10 minutes and
held off the pursuing pack by quite a comfortable margin with Steve
Stolk and Graham Tanton getting the minor placing’s. Meanwhile on the A
side of the ride, attack after attack saw an eight rider group get off
the front of the trailing and group, work together exceptionally well
and ultimately put a lap on the rest of the A’s, Mr Harris out of the
saddle in the final sprint and using most of the Stromlo home straight
in the process was first home holding off Ben Morrison and Matthew Corby
in a very tight finish.

The
last event of the night for B and Delta force saw a race stoppage after
22 minutes with an unfortunate coming together at the entry to the home
straight for the B grade bunch, yellow flags out and both grade
circling the top half of the course while triaging the felled riders,
those flags unfortunately had to go red as an ambulance was required for
one of the injured racers. In talking with a few of the riders, the
consensus came across that it just seemed to be one of those race
incidents, where nothing overt happened and maybe it was an unfortunate
series little things where too many bikes ended up in not enough space
and once the brakes go on something was bound to happen, it was a sad
end to a good night of racing.

Thanks
to both Bryan Holloway and Craig Kentwell for their assistance on the
night and to “fearless leader” Alex O’Shea who dropped in to provide
adult supervision to the marshalling group.

Update on Ian McVay

Regards
my crash on Tuesday night in B grade crit race, I was very annoyed that
no one was kind enough to allow me to land on top of them. But I must
say a big 'Thank you' to those that helped me out while I was lounging
about on the tarmac blocking the rest of the race. The damage could have
been a lot worse. Small fracture in my finger, slight fracture in my
hip and annoyingly a fracture to L5. Lucky this is a stable fracture and
I will in a brace for a while. I haven't inspected the bike yet, but I
think I cushioned it from serious damage.

I'm
in Canberra hospital but hope to get out on Monday. While not the best
place to be, the staff have been looking after me very well. A big
thanks to Alex O'Shea for checking up on me and helping with starting
the insurance claim. I'm hoping to get to the crit this week, and
looking forward to giving G grade a run for their money once I'm back on
the bike.

Ian McVay

Narrabundah Track Racing – 17th February

We
again welcomed hot, dry conditions for the track session on Wednesday,
17 February. It was windy during the track practice. As usual, the wind
eased over the session and overall conditions for racing were great. A
roll up of 18 riders provided excellent racing.

The
initial scratch races were 14 laps, with rider numbers allowing
separate A and B grade races. The A grade race started conservatively.
At mid-race Kerry Knowler took a flier with Michael Langdon taking up
the pursuit. Kerry and Michael quickly established a healthy gap.
However, when Kerry sat up, Michael realised the precarious nature of
his position and voluntarily returned to the pack. Michael Langdon
remained irrepressible. He attacked in the final few laps, established a
handy gap and sustained his position to take the win. Paul Connor and
Steve Jones took second and third respectively.

In
B grade, the bunch circulated at a good pace until the final two laps
when the lead rider was swamped, from behind, by an accelerating pack.
The last two laps saw some surges and the eventual splintering of the
pack as Alec Millet rode off for the win followed by Phil Coulton and
Bruce Griffin.

The
next event was a popular 1-lap screamer, a flat out burst from a flying
start. A grade times were close, with an overall spread of around 10%.
Michael Langdon took the best time at 22.03 secs. Kerry Knowler’s time
of 22.90 secs shows why she is such a powerhouse in the female ranks.
The B grade spread was greater. However, Alec Millett’s winning time of
23.29 would have been quite respectable for A grade.

The
next event was a 2-Lap, handicap. The handicaps are always fascinating
to watch, as the initially splayed field coalesces. In A grade, Peta
Brill rode brill to hold off Martin Graham and Michael Langdon for a
win. In B grade Alec Millett was unstoppable from the scratch position.
Phil Coulton and Bruce Griffin took creditable second and third
placings.

The
final event for the evening was an Italian Pursuit. This was great race
with a big field and unpredictable result. Team 1 was anchored by Steve
Jones and Team 2 by Michael Langdon. Team 1 established a big lead over
the initial laps. At one stage, it looked like Team 2 was in danger of
being caught. For the final four laps, Team 2 was left with Rowan
McMurray, Martin Graham, Paul Connor and Michael Langdon. Rowan kicked
off a revival with a blistering lap and each successive rider maintained
a relentless pursuit. In the final lap, Michael took a remarkable win
by a few metres.